gwen: reity check -- the president russia and in rme t home. plus,palin 2012. why it might yet happen. tonight onwashington week." meetig popes ad presidts -- it's l part of the jobor any u.s. leadr. >> we've nt agreed on very point. t we've shown it is pssible to move frward and mak real and uprecedented progess together. gwen:till, from climat change abroad to economic and health care fixes at ho, the presidensaw more hurdles than hoorays this week. >> the truth is tre was misreading of ju how bad an onomy we inherited. >> rather than say miread, we had incomple information. >> now, his is thegreatest faication i've seen nce i've been in cgress.

gwen: are healtcare and econoc stimulus off track? and whatcan the prsident do to get them backon? plus the week politica mystery. >> i'm not ging to clos any or that may be opn for e out the. gwen: is sarahalin's political career ver or just beginning? coverg the week doyle mcmanus "the los angeles times," ceci connollyf "the washington post,deborah solomon of "the wa street journal" adjames bares of "national journa. announcer: celebrating 4years of journistic excellence, live from our nation capital, this i"washington week" with gwen ifill, produced i association withnational journa" corporate funding for lfpack swk provided by -- >> we know -- or "washington week" is provid by -- >> we knw why we'rhere. >> to design th future of flight inside and ou. >> to buld tomorros

technologies in aazing ways. and eshape the science of aerospase rever. >> arou the globe, the eople of boeng are worki together fothe dreams of generations come. >> that's why we're here. >> it creates half the eltricity that fuels our drms. we have more of itthan any place on earth and we're working on ceanerways to e coal every way. ther's more information at mma.org. > major funding or "washingtoweek" is provided by the annenberg foundion, e john s. and james l. knight foundation, thecorporation for publ broadcasng and by contributions to your pbs station fm viewers like you. thank you. once again, live fro washingtonmoderator gwen ill.

gwen: good evenin it's one the perks of the offi -- jetting off on air force one, visiting paces and daschas d castles, even king the kids along. but don't think for evenne minute that it's a lot of fun, because everywhe president oba went this week, he discovered there was notne single magicand to be had. so whether the discussion s about nucleaweapons in iran climate change around the world, the americapresident came ay with a little less than he hoped. so was tht a reali check fr the any preident, doye? >> gwen, eve honeymoon comes toan end one day. last year wen he went overses, thestreets of european cities were ful of people who were love. everyther head of tate wanted to get into te picture th him. this time itwas a little different. he went to russia. had some tough meal -- meetgs. we to italy, had soe meetings tha made modest progress on a couple issus,

and we iscovered tht charm is great, charisma is great, popularitis great, b other countries have other intests and they're going t stick with them and th barack obama at the d of date is going o have to could s diplomacy by hard work andlocking and tackling like any othermere moral and it's justnot going to comeasy. en: so by theend of the week, at did he get nd what didn't he ge >> ell, let e ake iran becae that was the numr one issue fo theobama adminisation of the whole week. we can lookt other pieces of it too. on iran, if you want to know what did hey really wat, they wanted to ove the russians a little bit. ne -- they wanted t get a hearing fortheir bid that the russians have to be tougher and sanctns gwen: because its nuclear weaponsrogram? >> because ofits, iran' nuclear wpons program. andbecause ofthe domestic

troubles and e regime is walling itse back in. nosign of medvedev. came out befor the summit an said lok, iran is or prtner, we think sancions are a bad idea. move thepicture tohe g-8 summit and thee the uned states and allies brtain, germany and rance wanted a tough statement bout iran and again, couldn't do it. couldn't ge the ussianes to sign on thehey got an ok statementhat said ira should take this chnce for dplomacy and that we wil come back and reassess in september. that's aut as tough as it got. >> i'm wondering now that we've seen preident obama in a couple of these overeas gatherings and assignents do we have a better idea wht his style is when he's outside te u.s. a up againstthese heds of ste that have very dierent interests? >> i have wo impressions fom

watching it from far. i wasn'lucky enough to be on this trip, i'll conss that right up. one is he unerplays the charisma a ittle bit. when george bush wet to mscow he tried to make a big gale of the persona bond with putin. repoters asked president oba ifhere was a personal bond and he aid "this is all busiss." no personal bond tuff. the second thng, he's an activist presdent. he's as nterested in dong his own thing and utting ponts on the board as -- and taking the initiative verseas as here he maes hat joke, about health care it's not as if i don't havenough other things to do. we, he has thatnuclear initiatist he's gong to have a summit in the nited states next marchon nuclear secrity. this stuff he doesn't ve to do, ut he's as passionate

abou the foreign policy aeas as the domeic areas. >> 'm curius what yo think about this dicussion with iran w worried is the resident thatthey may not tke him up on that offer? >>he did tak with i. we were old it was the domint issue cerainly on the american side. part of thproblem is the russians, it's no their dominant issue. but yes, tace worry. here's basically the scenao the iran if anything is being less ooperative, ot more cooperative beause of its dostic tumor oifment the western countrieare trying to get irannto thenegotiations. iran appearsto be stiffing that offr. theycalm -- comeack in septembeand at that pointthe major powers ar going to try to get mre sanctions but ssia and china are till saying no. so you not ly have the

confntation with ian, you have th road block looming in september. >> before th president wnt away on this trp the whit house made a bigpush to get climate change legislationt least psed through the house. they though this would gie them little leverage dealing on the national stage the president went to the jay paon summit, semed to have come up kind of -- g-8 summit, seemed have comeup kind of short. what hapened? >> that was one f hose glas half emptythings. many the hop was you could get the -8 countrs togethein is larger roup that ws out the g-20, g-15 -- it kept being diffent umbers -- but youcould get th industrializincountries to sign on to tougher targets. they sied out, wouldn't do it. so at the endof the week the

older industriademocracies did sign ono tougher tagets but it'on a 40-ear timetab, not verybinding. >> gwen: ok. thank you,oil. by the end of this week congress was supposed to hav made real progre in the house anthe senate on health care legislation, but whethe cat's away -well, you know the rest. everywhe one looked this week, the administration pla to get health ca reform done th summer got caught up in yet another brush fi. what is the proble ceci? >> you mean tat cat obama, right? gwen: yeah, that cat. well, the problem was we were exposed t legilative sausagemaking and as everybody here knows,that is not a pretty sight. whatwe have seen weekafter week now his summer is as you get closer and closer tohaving an actual bill on someing as complicated as healthcare, something that is /6 of the u.s. economy and the lawakers strt looking at the specifics,

they don't likethem. you saw on the house side, everal rump groups o democrats gointo speaker pelo and aying you don't have enough co controls in the bill or we'veot a problem if youmight possibly fund adorgs --abortion services sohow throgh this new ealth xchange. these were her ow democats. so they hato say lt's take a paus not going to bringthe bill out quite yet. maybe next eek. they also ad a lot of difficulty findin the money to pafor health reorm. same thi in the seate. harry reid went to ma bacus, the finance committee chairman who's been rying to put together this ill and said list, there are democts in thesenate who don't like the idea o paying taxes n your employ-sponsored health care benefitso you've got togo ba and find $320 billion. gwen: am i confused or doesit seem ike all the figts are

happening within the democratic caucus? >> yes, tht's good news-ba news for democrs. we kw it's hard to keep thse cats all herded together especially n the democratic partand it also shows us the republicans he largely been on t sidelines in this debate. me of it is pure ath up there on wherthe votes re. in the nate there are a handful republans still involved blargely on th peripher >> for weeks now all kinds of pundits have een saying for this to work, barack obama is gog to have to come n nd herd hose cas. harry reid, nacey pelosi, thi is toobig a lift fr them. any sign thas going to heap -- help? >> ys, in a sense hat president obama and hi aides wod say look, we have been volved. before he leftthe country he had done a bigtown hall meetinon health care and before that speech to the a.m.a., but certaiy nxt week with him bac in washington you

will once again se him communicating tothe public a he do so well bilt need for heth care worm -- reform and y will see him back inthat role of meting one-on-ne or with small grouppeds o members of congss, trying to get them back on track. >> how fa are they in erms of figuring o to you -- how to pay fo this, hings is like the soda tax and the sin tax, ere are they interms of consensus? gwen: hardly seems like enough mone >> right. the oda and sin tax s an tion but it's not a arge amnt of money. fromseparate irections house and senate democrats se to , and i say eem to be, moving backtowards soaking e rich if you will ardon the cliche. they e looking at different ways o increasing taxedn he upper income americans it mght be aboe, sy, $35000, some sot of

scaledn surcharge on wealthy families. over n the senate is talked abt as a millionaire tax. very different th what we went into this loking at which was taxing health care benefits but that seemsto be whre the consensus is bilding right now. >> ceci, a ot of thing seemed to fall apart thi week in terms of the legislative pcess. how bad is it or health car? are thin terminal >> no, i think not. and in fac it was interesting. i hada conversation wth senator jay rockefelr today and he ws remiscing about the clinton effort 16 ars ago and, you kw, he ha the observation that many of the mistakes that haened 16 years ago with the clinton reorm you are noseeing this time around. he actually i very complimenta of the white house fo letting congress kind of do its thig for a while. he has thisview and i tendto agree that lawmakers want to feel that they have a built to their jobs and on sometng

as omplicaed as healh care they want to tae the tme, look these things oer, thrash itut and that's a lo of what we seattle gwen: but we've also seenhe presint and white house trotting out people nd spitals and insurs and basically saying ty're on board, you get on board oo. is that working >> you s most notably in te housesenator henry axman saying i'm nt bound bythose eals. gwen: right. >> on the other hand they are neutralizing some of t oppotion to some extent. tht can be helul down th road. gwen: ok. another domestic prioty got caught in charge and untercharge this week. the chae -- with the nation's jobless rate headed toward 10%, the president'sob-creating stulus package has not worked. >> think that we've got major credibility crisishere. no main the world ould get on a ship o ship ofstate and followthis navigation for the future. gwen: the -- he counterchge

-- the plan was nosupposed to work this fast, givet time, give itime. >> look whre we were six months ag when wetook office. we iherited the larest economic csis since the 1930's. what i refer to a not the great depession but he great recession becauseit was the single greest reession we'e hadin modern tims, dwrfing others. gwen: so, eborah, who'sright? >> i think they'rectually th right. you' got a situation he where the obaa administraon was sing figures bak in january when hey were conteam -- contemplating the stmulus that bsically seem outdated. they had not predicted double-digit unemployment e presidentaid if wedon't pass it, w'll hit double-digit. well a -- parof the problem is what the stimulus did o. j biden is saying wait, 10%

is out the door a it's going to take a whilfor it to work. other eonomists are sayng we nd more now. the conensus opinion among economists is don't do more now becae whatever you do it's going to be to late and we have a huge eficit problem th's going to make it ard to pay for the gwen:odid the hite house overpromise this s a jos bill so they're hosted on theirown petard? >> i don't hink they overold it. i think they ere more opt mivetic than ey probably -- optimistic shld have been. there's a diffence of opiion about wheher theymisread it or were gien incmplete formatio gw: that difference is between e president and presidt vice president! >> yeah. it's going o have o be a ltle bit of a waitan see game. >> a suspect a lo of people are frustrated when they her

the money is not outof the door yet. how come? >> good ques the vice presidt said they've got to ck up the pace. one of the reass is hese things te time, it bureaucrac, a lot of ax edits and the money was never intended to getout the do that fst. theongressionaludget ofice ways thought you woul have a quarte out in 2009, a quarter in 210. but t is oing ver sowly and you've only seen 10%out the door. >> i economists are a little t torn aout doig something more right nowwould make a differenceare there some other ings th administration couldo or are consering doi? definitely. therare things like etending unemployment benets. there is an xtension that runs ouin december. with the numb of people out of work ey're going tohave to doomething about that. they can makemore food stamps available some of tho feel-good things.

and they can do ore about housing. one of the this we're seing is the forecsures among the unmoid-- unempled who didn't take out liar loans but can't ma the payments. >> is there a role for the states to ccept 23-- step n here? orre they under the knd of financial stress that ty don't hae a lot of maneuving room? >> the states arein a terrible siation. we saw something we haven't seen since the 1930' and that is california issuin i.o.u.'s. the states a a drag on the stimulus. they are basicallydragging down any of the impacthe stimus might have had becaus they'r retrenching th're can selling summ schl, furloughing workers. if you're furlwed yu're not going to goout to dinner r the movies. so it's a rea drag on the stimulus. ey are talking aboutwhat

th can do to help the sttes but you can't eally help one state and notthe other an what n you do hat's a oe sizefits all? thestates have very differe prolems. and they need o prove to editors that thy're worhy of their mney and fix their vo -- problems s that they n borrow money. wen: i was suck by how interested the rpublicans were in this. they seemedto grab on to his as somethng they can push back hard on every singl da, talkin about how th didn't work. is this a theme we're going to see now develop mong publicans, which isah, finally we've got somhing we can at them about the ea with? definitely. i think you' seeing 2010 election campaignin going on right now and there isa desire on the hill to make thi the issue for the mid term electionand it's probably a winning trategy. we're going to se 10 unemployment throug 2010 nd it's going todrop very slowly. we're going to be seeing

joblessness for a ong time and the economy say huge ssue for most peple 79 gwen: thanks, irection and lcome to "washington wk." >> thank you gwen: fnally, this week's political mystery,arah palin. there aras many opinions about at the soon-to-e-former alaska governor iup to as there are fish in the state's riversnd streams. the latest analysis boils it down to a fight betweethe elites andhe working class. jim barnes --a member f one of those groups, i'm not sure which - gets to the nub ofthe matter. whatre they sayingn iowa and new hampshire and does it atter? >> it does mtter. after the last campan a lot of smart people n washington said sarah lin should go back up to jneau, run thestate and get a few more accomplishmes derneath her belt if hey -- s wanted to run for presint in her own rght. shedid not takethat advi. as should have learned by now, sarah palin marchesto her n drummer. it took a lo of the political

establishment aack, her sudden decisiono quilt her term wit 18 mosss to go. but out in plaes like iowa and new hashire, the kickof places for the nomining ontests, you talk to the grs roots o the republican party and they largelyaccept her explanation fo why she's stepping down, the lawuits and ethics investigatins which she says are frivolous ae a distraction stott state and that the mediaas reall becomenvasive to her family. that last point is not ne to overlook becau for a lot of conservativ activists hey lump the press i with plin's critics on the left and say you guys have been hard on he for 10 months evr since she stepped on the naional stage as john mcain's runningmate in 2008 d they say we, you know, o skepcism and ur scruti turns her into a

symthetic igure. gwen: how epresentative re these grassroots? of a paty which is self-idenfied republicans, an ever-slinkg -- ever-shrinking pa of the votig public? >> well, ther's grass rots and thn there's gratz -- grass roots, would say. if you talk folks out in iowa and new hampshire, folks who have payed a seni leadership ro in the campaigns, they lk at her performance when she ade the announcemenand it was such a wandering pformance -- gwen: uch a kind man. >> one minute se's talking about dea fish, just gowith the flow nd the next inute talking about a basketba team up ot to pass the ball. i ink crisp and convincing could -- wuld not be two ords you ould hearmany republican

professionals use o describe her perfmance. but if you think about the people lower down i the grass roots they wanta leader to rally arou right now, somedy who is going to, they put it, take a stand against presidenobama and the media and they realy don't care if she's not tht polisd right now. >> j, i wnder -- i certainly understand this noton of grass roots feeling as if the media has had althe scrutinyon her, etc on the other hand, we'vell spt a lot of time in iow and new ampshire and one of he things the folks tre like to do is ha into te living room and look you in te eye and ak u a question once and wice and three imes and see how you hold up nd i jus wonder ow u think she ould fare going through that party of preident process. >> well, you know, e dynamics both of the states are gifmen in iowa you've got lot of evangelicals and born-again chistians attended the last cauces. in new hamhire, socia issue

conservative candidate don't reallyo all that well. bu you hit on smething that's ry important which is those two stes, the people thre becse they get t go frst, the people the take it as their civi duty to give folks afair shake and actually thi that would benefit palin. you know, they're oingto say ye, we've read all his in the edia about you bu they ll give her a chanc to make e case to them direct. >>im, one f the ascinating thgs about this picture s e flip sidof what you're talking about, and hat is the number ofestablishment republican figues, today peggy noonan, frious at saah palin and saying she' terrible for the republican pary. how does that mpact those folks at the grass rots? and is it aproblem for sara palin? there seemso be this never-ending feud betwe her and the people n the john mccain capaign. inoticesenator mccain hasn't said anyhing.

>> and i don't thk you're going to hear him ay anything all -- although i hadheard from one of hs operives he had put out the word tosay st the back-biting the i ink among the rak and file they look atthe recrim inages as kind of a -- recriminatis as kind of a wahington parlr game. but atome point sar palin is going toneed support from hehere's -- eers, mechanics of congress d governors and they payattention to ose kinds of stories d those stoes could make them a guilty gn-shy about supporting he gwen: we're oing to have to continue our own washingn parlor game next wk. i nevethought of i that way t i like it. this is good. i like hose political mysteries. i think we'll do more. our conrsation continu onle with our we-exclusive washington weekq.&.a..

che us out. then then keep uwith developmts on "the newshour with jim lehrer", inclung complete li coverage of sueme court confirmation hearings of judge soni sotomayor. and we'll see you again ght here next we on "washington ek." good night. >> corpote funding f "washington we" is provided by- boig. an the national ining association. major fuding for "washington week" is provided bythe annenberg foundation, thejohn s. andjames l. knight foundion, the corpration for public boadcasting, and by contributio to your pbs statn from viewers lke you. ank you.